Are you smarter than a 2-year old?

The answer in my case is a resounding no. As I found out, unceremoniously, alerted by my 2-year old this week.
I am a lawyer. I would consider myself to be doing okay in the smarts-stakes. But in the switched-on mother stakes, I’m still ranking in the ‘not-quite caught up with the vibe’ arena. Had it not been for 2-year olds’ astonishing ingenuity this week, I would have still be labouring under the misapprehension of ranking a little higher than that, so I guess I have something to thank him for…

We have one of those front doors with a helpful handle that’s easy for a 2-yeara old to open from the inside (that much I did know!). So, being ‘smart’ as I am, I lock it to avoid him letting himself out and frightening the neighbour’s. I also, being ‘smart’ as I am, never go out of the front door without the front-door key. This is naturally to avoid the inevitable ‘bye mummy’ and subsequent slamming of said front door behind me (it hasn’t happened but no doubt it’s only a matter of time!). So, when I went out to put the buggy up before walking to football to see Stepson number 2 play, I thought I had thought of everything by taking the key and locking the door for the 2 minutes that it was going to take me to put the buggy up (it’s a double so it does take 2 minutes instead of 26 seconds).
Only when I turned back around to unlock the door, 2-year old was starring very happily through the glass looking extremely impressed with himself. To my horror, he’d reached the emergency key, left high up nearby, by taking the box step from the downstairs loo and had tried to use the key to unlock the door from the inside. He’d successfully put the key in the lock and was trying, and failing, to turn it to unlock the door. This of course meant I was unable to unlock the door from the outside.

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH! Panic, cry, laugh, shout, scream, more panic and maybe cry again?!?! I wasn’t sure which of these emotions was going to come first but I knew cry was pretty high up on the list!

Having summoned all of my will power to fight back the tears, it occurred to me that I had a back door key on the keyring I was holding. Okay, not a complete disaster, I could (somehow) scale the garage and get in that way. Or I could stand and try to explain to 2-year old how to turn the key and unlock the door and/or just remove the key. After a few what seemed like very long minutes of mouthing and shouting and miming for him to remove the key, unsuccessfully, I was almost ready to burst into tears not being able to suppress the panic any longer when he suddenly removed the key and I was able to get in.

Ingenious and resourceful, he just saved his mummy from having to pretend to be Lara Croft and scale the garage! If he’d have known, no doubt he would’ve left me to do that for his own entertainment. He must be his father’s son!